IBM Workplace Services Express V2.0 — A new way to access your work, and work together, as an on-demand business
IBM United States Software Announcement 204-278November 16, 2004
 ENUS204-278.PDF (36KB)
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At a glance
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| At a glance |
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IBM Workplace Services Express V2.0 allows you to:
- Provide users with the flexibility of browser-based access to business applications and content
- Work with Microsoft 2000, XP, and 2003
- Deploy a solution with integrated document management, instant messaging, and portal
- Lower your total cost of ownership through operation on a single server
- Provide team spaces (online work areas) where teams can work together on projects
- Customize pages with new drag-and-drop technology
- Enable user authentication and single sign-on across multiple applications
- Choose between user-based and processor-based licensing options
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| Overview |
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IBM Workplace™ Services Express V2.0 meets the needs of small and medium-sized businesses.
IBM Workplace Services Express V2.0 includes new tools and functionality to enhance employee productivity and allow your employees, trading partners, and customers to easily find and use the applications and information they need.
Features of IBM Workplace Services Express V2.0 include:
- The flexibility and choice provided by a browser-based approach to how you access and interact with your business applications and content
- Improved total cost of ownership through the ability to use your existing Microsoft™ Office 2000 and XP licenses with Workplace Services Express
- Simplified system management and administration through the ability to operate an integrated solution for team spaces (online team work areas), document management, instant messaging, and portal on one server
- The ability to realize business value from your investment faster through simplified installation and ready to use team room templates that end users can provision from a browser
- Ability to sign-on across multiple applications with one ID and password
- Increased ease of use through customization of portal pages, using new drag-and-drop technology, to drag a portlet from one location to another on the page
- Integrates well with your existing IT environment through support of your existing LDAP server including Domino™, Microsoft, and others
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| Key prerequisites |
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Refer to the Hardware requirements and Software requirements sections for details.
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| Planned availability dates |
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- November 30, 2004: Electronic software delivery
- December 31, 2004: Media and documentation
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| Description |
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Workplace Services Express V2.0 provides powerful team collaboration and document management features that helps teams work together more effectively. Workplace Services Express allows you to deploy team spaces where the documents, applications, and other information displayed on the page can be customized to meet the needs of specific teams or projects, or by the users themselves, to better match their individual work preferences.
Flexibility and choice in accessing and interacting with applications and content
Workplace Services Express V2.0 provides you with flexibility and choice in how you access and interact with your applications and content by allowing you to do so from a browser. The browser could be one on your work PC, or in a branch office, or in some other location. In the past, you might have had to use different clients, visit different Web sites, and use different IDs and passwords to work with the variety of applications and content that you need. Workplace Services Express includes an integrated portal that provides one location to visit, with a single sign-on across multiple applications — all from a browser. In addition to team spaces (online work areas), document management, and instant messaging, your e-mail, calendar, and other business applications and content can be integrated into Workplace Services Express and accessed from a browser. You are not limited by the constraints of being required to use a unique PC with traditional PC-centric software installed on it. Workplace Services Express' portal pages are also customizable. This means you can choose which applications and content appear on which portal page, and how they are arranged on the page. New drag-and-drop technology allows you to simply drag applications from one area of a portal page to another. You wind up with a portal that is more comfortable to use and has the information on it that you need.
Improved total cost of ownership
Workplace Services Express helps you to improve your total cost of ownership by allowing you to continue using your Microsoft Office 2000 and XP licenses to work with documents, while enjoying all the benefits of the newest technology for team collaboration and portal capabilities. If you do choose to move to Microsoft Office 2003 at some point, Workplace Services Express will work with it as well. Workplace Services Express provides you the flexibility to make a change such as this when it best meets your needs. Workplace Services Express is a consolidated solution that includes facilities for team spaces, document management, instant messaging, presence awareness, and portal. Browser-based tools are also provided that empower non-technical users to surface business data through the portal, thus reducing the need for traditional PC-based tools and their associated costs. You get all this with one purchase and installation. The ability to run everything on one server means you spend less on hardware, and your IT organization only needs to manage one server instead of multiple servers. Additionally, you can choose to license Workplace Services Express V2.0 based on the number of users you have or on the number of processors on which you will deploy it. This flexibility allows you to keep your costs low, while deploying a sophisticated solution for team collaboration and portal for your organization. User-based or processor-based licensing can be used for an extranet-based, intranet-based, or Internet-based portal providing you with the flexibility needed to best match licensing to your planned usage.
Customers choosing Workplace Services Express V2.0 can realize substantial improvements in speed and flexibility in the marketplace from the following benefits:
- Increased employee productivity, with easy-to-use and easy-to-customize work spaces where you can create, edit, and share documents, and work with the teammates and applications you need to get your job done, in less time.
- Reduced costs and complexity from a single-server, server-managed collaborative platform.
- Immediate value, with out-of-the-box functionality that users can use and customize themselves.
Share documents with teammates more effectively
Workplace Services Express V2.0 provides you with a document manager that allows you and your teammates to share, organize, and edit documents of all types, ranging from company manuals to marketing chart sets and financial spreadsheets. Users can view, add, and delete documents in the document manager using Windows™ Explorer, Microsoft Office (2000, XP, or 2003), or a browser interface. Additional features include:
- A simple approval process for file contribution
- Automatic dialog boxes for contributing metadata
- Integrated search capability
- Versioning that allows users to track the evolution of a piece of content
- access control for managing viewing privileges of different content items
Workplace Services Express V2.0 document manager can help you make the most effective use of your company information by making it easily available to those who need it.
Create team spaces (online work areas) where teams can work together on projects
Workplace Services Express V2.0 allows you to create team spaces (online work areas) within the portal that can be used by members of a team to share information. For instance, you can create a team space where teammates can store documents that are needed for a specific project. Access to a team space can be granted to all project members who can then contribute documents, review and edit them, and store them back in the team space. The team space can also contain a calendar on which project events can be scheduled for improved project management. Sample templates are provided with Workplace Services Express V2.0 for applications that accelerate the creation of team spaces for your unique needs.
Communicate and work with teammates more effectively
Workplace Services Express V2.0 provides instant messaging and chat for rapid communication among teammates. Combined with presence awareness, this allows you to see who is currently online and communicate with them immediately. For instance, if you are reviewing a spreadsheet in the integrated document manager, and the spreadsheet's author's name is highlighted, that indicates that the author is online. You can click on that person's name and immediately begin discussing the document with them, avoiding phone tag delays.
Realize business value from your investment faster
Workplace Services Express includes ready to use templates for team spaces that end users can self provision from their browsers. This allows your teams to begin using Workplace Services Express quickly and realizing the benefits it can provide in improved team collaboration on projects. Since the user's experience is deployed from the server and accessed from a browser, a Workplace Services Express-based solution can adapt more rapidly to changes in your organization or business environment. For instance, when you deploy a new business application for your users, you accomplish this by placing the application on a team space or portal page from which your users access it using their browser. This avoids the time consuming task of installing traditional PC-centric software on each user's PC whenever a new application is developed, a new employee hired, or some other change occurs in your business.
Additional license information
Workplace Services Express V2.0 is licensed for operation in a single-server configuration only. Clustering and cloning of servers is not supported.
You can choose between user-based licensing or processor-based licensing.
When user-based licensing is used, no more than 2,000 users may be placed on the server. When user-based licensing is used there is no license restriction on the number of processors the server can have.
When processor-based licensing is used, the server cannot have more than four processors in it. When processor-based is used, there is no license restriction on the number of users that are given access to the server.
Refer to the product license for detail. Also, refer to the Performance considerations section of this announcement for guidelines on workload sizing.
Workplace Services Express may be deployed in a warm standby configuration. Warm standby is defined as having the server powered up and not in use, but is ready to assume the workload of another server if that other server fails. A server that is placed in warm standby must have the number of Workplace Services Express V2.0 licenses that are sufficient to enable it to assume the workload of the other intended server.
Accessibility by people with disabilities
With the exception of the Portal Productivity Components, Workplace Services Express V2.0 has the following accessibility characteristics:
Features for vision impaired users:
- Supports interfaces commonly used by screen readers
- Can be operated using only the keyboard
- Allows the user to request more time to complete timed responses
- Supports customization of display attributes such as color, contrast, and font size
- Communicates all information independently of color
- Supports interfaces commonly used by screen magnifiers
- Supports the attachment of alternative output devices
- Provides documentation in an accessible format
Features for users with mobility impairments or limited hand use:
- Can be operated using only the keyboard
- Allows the user to request more time to complete timed responses
- Supports the attachment of alternative input and output devices
Features for the deaf and hard of hearing users:
- Supports alternatives to audio information
- Supports adjustable volume control
For cognitively impaired users:
- Allows the user to request more time to complete the activity
- Does not flash the screen at rates that could induce epileptic seizures
Trademarks
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| Offering information |
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Product information is available via the Offering Information Web site
Also, visit the Passport Advantage® Web site
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| Publications |
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No publications are shipped with this product.
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| Technical information |
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Specified operating environment
Hardware requirements
- Processor: 2.0 GHz Intel™ Pentium™ 4 or equivalent processor
- Physical memory: 2 GB minimum; 4 GB recommended for production environment
- Disk space: 17 GB minimum
Software requirements
One of the following operating systems:
- Microsoft™ Windows™ 2003 Enterprise
- Microsoft Windows 2003 Standard
- Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server SP4
- Microsoft Windows 2000 Server SP4
- Microsoft Windows XP SP1® (Development Platform support only)
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux™ AS for Intel (x86) 2.1
- SUSE SLES for Intel (x86) 8 2.4 Kernel
Note: Linux is supported only on an IBM-compatible PC.
The following database is required for the Windows and Linux environments:
- Workplace Services Express uses its integrated data store for its own data and does not require an external database. This internal data store is not licensed for use by applications nor content.
One of the following LDAP servers:
- IBM Directory Server V5.1
- IBM Tivoli® Directory Server V5.2
- Lotus® Domino™ Enterprise Server 5.0.11, or 5.0.12, or 6.0.x, or 6.5.x
- Sun ONE Directory Server V5.2
- Microsoft Windows Active Directory 2000
- Workplace Services Express can also operate without a LDAP server
Web servers
- IBM HTTP Server
- Apache Server 1.3.26
- Microsoft Internet Information Server 5.0
- Lotus Domino Enterprise Server (as Web server) 5.0.9, or later
- Sun ONE Web Server, Enterprise Edition 6.0 SP4
Web browsers
- Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 SP1 or 5.5 SP2®
- Mozilla Web browser 1.3, or 1.2.1, or 1.0.2
- Mozilla 1.4 on Linux with Sun Java™ Runtime Environment (JRE) 1.4.2
- Netscape Communicator 7.2
WebSphere® Portal Toolkit
WebSphere Portal Toolkit can be used to facilitate the development and customization of portlets for Workplace Services Express integrated portal. WebSphere Portal Toolkit is a free plug-in in to one of the following, which is a separate purchase:
- WebSphere Studio Site Developer for Windows and Linux V5
- WebSphere Studio Application Developer for Windows and Linux V5
For more information about WebSphere Portal Toolkit and where you can download it, visit
For updated software information, visit
Performance considerations: This release of Workplace Services Express is designed for use by small and medium-sized companies. As such, when planning a Workplace Services Express V2.0 server deployment, it is recommended that no more than 750 users be provided with access to the server with up to 75 of these users being concurrent, and including up to 15 team spaces. This should only be used as a starting point when assessing how many users can be placed on a Workplace Services Express server. The specific details of a company's planned usage such as the percent of the users that are concurrent, and which capabilities of Workplace Services Express are being utilized will affect the workplace sizing for a server. Consult with your IBM representative or Business Partner on your specific requirements.
Planning information
Packaging: IBM Workplace Services Express V2.0 is available to Passport Advantage customers via electronic download from the Passport Web site or as a CD-ROM media pack.
This program, when downloaded from the Web site or loaded from the CD-ROM media pack, contains the applicable IBM license agreement and License Information (LI) which will be presented for acceptance at the time of installation of the program. The license and LI will be available from the following Web site
IBM Workplace Services Express V2.0 includes:
- Portal Server
- Portal Document Manager
- Selected components of WebSphere Application Server, Enterprise
- IBM Directory Server and IBM Tivoli Directory Server
- Portlets
- Portal Productivity Components
Security, auditability, and control
Workplace Services Express V2.0 uses the security and auditability features of the host operating system.
The customer is responsible for evaluation, selection, and implementation of security features,
administrative procedures, and appropriate controls in application systems and communication
facilities.
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| Ordering information |
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This product is only available via Passport Advantage. It is not available as shrinkwrap.
Licensed function table Product group Product category IBM Workplace Lotus Workplace Workplace Service Service Express Express
Workplace Services Express is available with two licensing options:
- User-based licensing
- Processor-based licensing
Passport Advantage program licenses
IBM Workplace Services Express
Part
Part description number
IBM Workplace Services Express
IBM Workplace Services Express Per D54Q8LL
Processor License & SW Maint 12 Months
Part
Part description number
IBM Workplace Services Express 20 Users D54QALL
License & SW Maintenance 12 Months
IBM Workplace Services Express Per D54Q9LL
Processor SW Maint Reinstatement 12 Mont
IBM Workplace Services Express 20 Users D54QBLL
SW Maint Reinstatement 12 Months
IBM Workplace Services Express 20 E01N2LL
Users SW Maintenance Annual Renewal
IBM Workplace Services Express Per E01N1LL
Processor SW Maintenance Annual Renewal
Passport Advantage supply
Part
Program name/description number
IBM Workplace Services Express V2.0.0
Media Pack Multilingual (English BS000ML
International, Portuguese, French, Danish,
Russian, Hebrew, Arabic, Korean, Chinese --
Simplified, Spanish, Norwegian Bokmal,
Brazilian Portuguese, German, Swedish,
Japanese, Chinese -- Traditional, Hungarian,
Norwegian Nynorsk, Greek, Turkish, Dutch,
Czech, Italian, Finnish, Polish) Windows 2000,
Windows Server 2003, Linux for x86 Series
Intel-based servers CD-ROM Digital Disk --
ISO 9660 Standard V2.0.0
Passport Advantage customer: Media pack entitlement details
Customers with active maintenance or subscription for the products listed are entitled to receive the corresponding media pack.
IBM Workplace Services Express V2.0.0
Entitled
maintenance
offerings Media packs Part
description description number
IBM Workplace IBM Workplace Services BS000ML
Services Exp Multilingual (English
Express per International, Portuguese,
Processor French, Danish, Russian,
Hebrew, Arabic, Korean,
Chinese -- Simplified,
Spanish, Norwegian,
Bokmal, Brazilian
Portuguese, German,
Swedish, Japanese,
Chinese -- Traditional,
Hungarian, Norwegian
Nynorsk, Greek, Turkish,
Dutch, Czech, Italian,
Finnish, Polish) Windows
2000, Windows Server
2003, Linux for x86 Series
Intel-based servers
CD-ROM Digital Disk --
ISO 9660 Standard
Entitled
maintenance
offerings Media packs Part
description description number
IBM Workplace IBM Workplace Services BS000ML
Services Exp Multilingual (English
Express per International, Portuguese,
20 Users French, Danish, Russian,
Hebrew, Arabic, Korean,
Chinese -- Simplified,
Spanish, Norwegian
Bokmal, Brazilian
Portuguese, German,
Swedish, Japanese,
Chinese -- Traditional,
Hungarian, Norwegian
Nynorsk, Greek,Turkish,
Dutch, Czech, Italian,
Finnish, Polish) Windows
2000, Windows Server
2003, Linux for x86 Series
Intel-based servers
CD-ROM Digital Disk --
ISO 9660 Standard
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| Terms and conditions |
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This product is only available via Passport Advantage. It is not available as shrinkwrap.
Licensing: IBM International Program License Agreement. Proofs of Entitlement (PoE) are required for all authorized use.
Part number products only, offered outside of Passport Advantage, where applicable, are license only and do not include Software Maintenance.
License information form number
Program
Program name number Form number
IBM Workplace 5724-L08 L-GINS-64WLKH
Services Express
Limited warranty applies: Yes
Warranty: This program has warranty for a minimum of one year from acquisition from IBM or authorized IBM Business Partner. The warranty provided to the customer, for at least one year from acquisition, is access to databases (read Web sites) for program information and FAQs, including any known fixes to defects, which the customer can download or obtain otherwise and install at leisure.
Money-back guarantee: If for any reason you are dissatisfied with the program, return it within 30 days from the invoice date, to the party (either IBM or its reseller) from whom you acquired it, for a refund. This applies only to your first acquisition of the program.
Copy and use on home/portable computer
Copy and use on
home/portable
Product name computer?
IBM Workplace Services Express No
Volume orders (IVO): No
Passport Advantage applies
Yes and through the Passport Advantage Web site at
IBM Operational Support Services — Support Line: No
iSeries™ Software Subscription applies: No
Educational allowance available:
Not applicable
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| Prices |
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Passport Advantage
For Passport Advantage information and charges, contact your IBM representative or authorized IBM Business Partner. Additional information is also available at
Trademarks
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